Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Half Sigma discusses chess and the nerd factor in his post today. He cites the Peter Principle (or perhaps more accurate the Peter Rule) which is "non-athletic activities which only men participate in, yet are not viewed as traditionally masculaine, are the nerdiest activities."

From my experience, I agree that non-athletic, male-dominated, non-traditionally-masculine activities are nerdy. I also think an activity is nerdy if it has no real economic, pratical or intelligent value.

True, the argument could be made that many board games and computer games have some intelligent value, but I think chess tends to be associated with greater value than D&D and MMORPGs. And the reason I think that chess has the greater value is because in chess, you the player control all the pieces and are in charge of all operations, strategy and tactics on the board. In D&D and MMORPGs, you are one of many players and relinquish the "big picture". In chess, you're above the fray and not so caught up in the game while in D&D and MMORPGs you could get lost in time and reality.

And maybe that is another factor in the nerd factor: how detached are you from reality? The less detached from reality, the less nerdy.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Generally speaking, it seems that chess players are either grumpy or just wierd. Personally, I think I tend to be in the grumpy camp. In fact, my wife has to remind me to not be so negative all the time.

Now comes a study about the benefits of being negative. This article explains some of the findings of the study such as being in a bad mood makes you less gulliable, improves your ability to judge others and boosts memory. Negativity can also "trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world."

A couple of other good things about being in a bad mood are: less likely to make quick decisions and less likely to make mistakes during recall.